Father’s Old Blue Cardigan Now it hangs on the back of the kitchen chair where I always sit, as it did on the back of the kitchen chair where he always sat. I put it on whenever I come in, as he did, stamping the snow from his boots. I put it on and sit in the dark. He would not have done this. Coldness comes paring down from the moonbone in the sky. His laws were a secret. But I remember the moment at which I knew he was going mad inside his laws. He was standing at the turn of the driveway when I arrived. He had on the blue cardigan with the buttons done up all the way to the top. Not only because it was a hot July afternoon but the look on his face— as a small child who has been dressed by some aunt early in the morning for a long trip on cold trains and windy platforms will sit very straight at the edge of his seat while the shadows like long fingers over the haystacks that sweep past keep shocking him because he is riding backwards. Anne Carson in Men in the Off Hours.